Dear Canada,
I’m sorry to meet you like this, and I’m sorry that I haven’t (yet) gotten to know you. I’ll probably be a bit hasty, because I’m very scared. Scared and tired.
“Give me your tired, your poor” was supposed to be our thing, down here, but all I can feel now is tired, with no more of that promised respite and nothing else beautiful on the horizon. Not according to my gut, anyway.
So Canada — I’m sorry to ask so much, so fast — but might you have an extra spot for an ordinary guy? I’m quiet and write software and don’t like to make waves. I promise to be kind and productive and a good (enough) citizen (I say ‘enough’ for now, because it hurts too much to stay politically up-to-date, at least down here. I hope you’ll understand.)
Dear Canada,
My IELTS is next month, and I’m excited to get it over with! I’m incredibly fortunate to speak natively, but I probably shouldn’t get on a high horse. I looked at a practice question, though, and it seemed fine enough. I’m getting my ECA done, too, and hope the folks down at Texas A&M don’t give me trouble, with the new name and all. We’ll find out soon!
There is so much left to do, but I’m taking it slow. How funny it will be to tell my employers about this — ‘Uh, so yeah! If you wouldn’t mind writing me a very nice, very occupation-code-21232-esque letter about how I design, write, and test code for new systems and software to ensure efficiency, I kinda need one for emigration reasons! You’re good with international employees, right?’ (I really, really hope so, because I love this job and this American team dearly, but I might have to cross that bridge if I come to it).
Dear Canada,
I’m a little excited — what an adventure you may be, if I work hard and you’ll have me! — but I’m so very sad.
I thought going north would stop with Boston, my heart’s first home in the country of my birth. But now my heart breaks, and a gut feeling breaks it. The urgency is so far-fetched and tiny and ridiculous now, but it’s there and it bubbles and it won’t go away. Even when I think about Boston. I’m terrified. And I’m so, so tired.
My parents tell me that ‘there are whackjobs here, and there will be whackjobs everywhere,’ but my gut tells me that the U.S., as big and loud as it is, will always be the one to make the first and worst and most horrifying examples of itself.
Even in one of our bluest and kindest states, I can see such an example on the horizon. We’ve already done it, with Roe v. Wade, and though I know there are things like states’ rights and checks and balances, I have an awful feeling in my stomach this time.
It’s an awful, gnawing, melancholy, and soul-killing hopelessness.
It’s a tiny, itching, growing, and bone-chilling feeling that someone will find another loophole.
It’s a creeping feeling that some federal court ruling will turn my medical things upside down or, worse yet, that a disgusting, once-in-a-millennium level of corrupt Special Someone who should really be in prison by now will greedily and carelessly wreak even more havoc than he already has, and somehow, magically, be able to issue that executive order he doesn’t give a meaningful shit about, the one that could ultimately lead to my death.
Dear Canada,
I’m sorry if I’m going a bit off the rails here. A stream of consciousness like this wouldn’t look particularly great on my IELTS, would it? But I’m sad and I’m scared. I hope you’ll understand.
I’m just a regular guy, a guy who takes a regular enough medicine to live and feel alive. I had to change my name once. And I’m sort of scared of bathrooms. I don’t want to ask you for anything, but my life is political now, down here, and I’m tired. I’m sad and I’m scared and I’m tired.
So if you’ll have me, and if I work hard for you in turn, will you let me fade into normalcy? Would you be a quiet home?
Would the people there just be…quiet? And let me be?
Dear Canada,
I’m sorry that I’m still so sad. I’m excited, after all!
I bought 100 postage stamps, you see, and maybe twice as many gorgeous, neon-colored envelopes, all to print that long thing I once wrote about being transgender — the one that Mom said impressed her cousin’s Catholic convent down in rural Texas — the one I thought I’d send to every single United States senator, on paper, by snail mail, with a hand-scrawled signature and a smiley and maybe even a tiny photo of myself, a human being, in case they needed reminding.
I might still do it, but I don’t know if it matters. I am tiny and I am nothing, except when I’m a monolith worth a moral panic. I just want to be human again.
So Canada —
Thank you.
Thanks for listening, I guess. I’ll keep working on that Express Entry application, step-by-step, one day at a time.
I am sad and defeated, but I will find a home.
